Many extra miles, in fact! Ian Gray, manager of WearCheck’s transformer services division, and Des Rodel manager of the Cape Town Branch, recently travelled to Khobab and Loeriesfontein wind farms, in the Northern Cape - 450km from Cape Town - to run a transformer oil sample course for the maintenance team.

Each wind turbine is connected to a step-up (padmount) transformer which boosts the generating output of the wind turbine generator from 690 V to 33 kV. These transformers are located at the base of the wind turbine. From there, all the power is then interconnected to a collector step-up transformer located in a substation where it is transported to the electricity grid.

The reliability, or lack thereof, of step-up (padmount) transformers has led to the investigation of the total cost of ownership in trying to balance the low cost of step-up padmount transformers versus the cost of premature failures.

The insulating oil testing is typically a critical first step in this investigation that requires sampling performed by an experienced person, who has received adequate training, in accordance with IEC 60475.

Above: The Loriesfontein Windfarm maintenance team attended a transformer oil sample course run on-site by Ian Gray, head of WearCheck’s transformer services division (fourth from left with grey trousers)

WearCheck will be at the 17th annual African Utility Week, which takes place from 16 – 18 May in Cape Town. This will be the first time that WearCheck attends this global meeting of African power and water utility professionals.

Ian Gray, from WearCheck’s newly-formed transformer reliability services division, will be based at the Doble Engineering stand at booth number J12.

The primary function of the new transformer division is the promotion of transformer health through the regular assessment of insulating fluid and diagnosis of the results.

Please come and meet Ian and chat about how we can help you reduce maintenance costs for your transformers, as well as boosting their availability and improving productivity.

Coupled with our Africa-wide network, the expertise of TCS and a general growth in the number of transformers across the continent, WearCheck is now poised to provide large-scale and widespread comprehensive transformer reliability services.

The primary function of the newly-formed transformer division is the promotion of transformer health through the regular assessment of insulating fluid and diagnosis of the results.

We now offer the transformer tests done by TCS to our existing transformer oil analysis programme, increasing the number of available fluid and non-fluid tests, such as Insulation Paper Quality Testing.

TCS was established in Westville, Durban in 1992 by Ian Gray, who has run the company for the past 25 years.

Offering the full spectrum of transformer reliability solutions by one condition monitoring company – this is one of the key benefits of the merger of TCS into WearCheck. So says WearCheck MD Neil Robinson, who constantly strives to provide customers with value-for-money services that reliably boost plant availability.

Says Robinson, ‘The transition of TCS into WearCheck is already underway and is an extremely smooth process, particularly since the two companies share an absolute dedication to the integrity of data and a parallel commitment to customer service excellence.

‘From WearCheck’s side, we extend a very warm welcome to all the current TCS customers, and we look forward to taking new transformer clients on board to experience our new one-stop transformer maintenance shop.’

Shaking hands on the deal – WearCheck MD Neil Robinson (right) and TCS MD Ian Gray discuss the details of the merger of TCS into WearCheck. For customers operating transformers, the merger means all transformer maintenance needs can now be met under one roof.